otes thought.

How I pity you!

Superb chatelaines, who during the loneliness of the Crusades raised
into highest favor your chaplains and your pages, you never could share
with them the charms of the biscuit and the delights of the macaroon.

How I pity you!

And lastly you, gastronomers of 1825, who already find satiety in the
lap of abundance, and dream of new preparations, you will not enjoy
those discoveries which the sciences have in store for the year 1900,
such as esculent minerals and liqueurs resulting from a pressure of a
hundred atmospheres; you will not behold the importations which
travelers yet unborn shall cause to arrive from that half of the globe
which still remains to be discovered or explored.

How I pity you!

ON THE LOVE OF GOOD LIVING

I have consulted the dictionaries under the word _gourmandise_, and am
by no means satisfied with what I find. The love of good living seems to
be constantly confounded with gluttony and voracity; whence I infer that
our lexicographers, however otherwise estimable, are not to be classed
with those good fellows amongst learned men who can put away gracefully
a wing of partridge, and then, by raising the little finger, wash it
down with a glass of Lafitte or Clos-Vougeot.

They have utterly forgot that social love of good eating which combines
in one, Athenian elegance, Roman luxury, and Parisian refinement. It
implies discretion to arrange, skill to prepare; it appreciates
energetically, and judges profoundly. It is a precious quality, almost
deserving to rank as a virtue, and is very certainly the source of much
unqualified enjoyment.

_Gourmandise_, or the love of good living, is an impassioned, rational,
and habitual preference for whatever flatters the sense of taste. It is
opposed to excess; therefore every man who eats to indigestion, or makes
himself drunk, runs the risk of being erased from the list of its
votaries. _Gourmandise_ also comprises a love for dainties or tit-bits;
which is merely an analogous preference, limited to light, delicate, or
small dishes, to pastry, and so forth. It is a modification allowed in
favor of the women, or men of feminine tastes.

Regarded from any point of view, the love of good living deserves
nothing but praise and encouragement. Physically, it is the result and
proof of the digestive organs being healthy and perfect. Morally, it
shows implicit resignation to the commands of Nature, who, in ordering
man t